


Enamoured of the Night

by persepoline



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Cask of Amontillado, Ambiguous Relationships, Immurement, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 00:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15521757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persepoline/pseuds/persepoline
Summary: Matoba graciously offers to give Natori a tour of the expansive clan wine cellars. It goes about as well as you’d expect.





	Enamoured of the Night

Natori Shuuichi did not usually drink, which made the question of precisely when and how he’d managed to get drunk all the more perplexing.

Exorcists, as a general rule, did not throw parties. The Matoba clan _especially_ did not throw parties. They held meetings and gatherings and, for want of a better word, _networking_ events, where everyone in attendance sat with excellent posture and made their very best attempts at intimidation. And yet, this --- Natori cast a covert glance around the room: the tables laden with food, the chilled sake glasses winking frostily in the evening light, the warm buzz of conversation growing steadily and inescapably louder. This was somehow, impossibly, despite all odds...a party.

Or rather, what had certainly _begun_ as a fairly run-of-the-mill assembly had digressed slowly but surely into something more festive.

Natori considered the options before him: either the hosts were going to run out of alcohol and this meeting-turned-party was going to dissolve gradually back into a meeting again, or it wasn’t. The former outcome was unlikely; the Matoba clan never _ran out_ of anything, except maybe good graces and bedside manner - things they’d had in short supply to begin with. It was more likely that the guests would be cut off at some point, Natori thought, and quickly snatched another long-stemmed glass of something carbonated from a tray carried aloft by a passing shiki: not one of the typical faceless Matoba blobs, but what appeared to be a slender woman wearing a jackal’s head. One of Nanase’s, perhaps.

Natori sipped noncommittally at his drink and hoped that not _all_ Matoba-sponsored gatherings were going to have an open bar from now on. If they did, Natori might actually have to start attending more often.

It was _very_ good champagne, he conceded.

Natori checked his wristwatch. The party was going to simmer back into a _networking event_ soon, or else it stood a very real chance of getting interesting. Quickly Natori understood that the possibility of enjoying _one_ of those options was not worth risking the other, and decided to make a break for the door.

“Shuuichi-san.”

Natori winced.

“Good evening.” Matoba Seiji was floating across the room in one of his more dramatic getups: dark monsuke robe with an understated, subtle pattern. Traditional, almost overbearing. The formality of the garment clashed with the levity of his voice. “You’ve been well, I trust?”

“I have,” said Natori, and for a split second he had to remind himself fiercely that it was true.

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

Natori shrugged. No one came to exorcist meetings to enjoy themselves, and he was sure Matoba knew it. “I suppose so.” He inclined his head. “And I suppose I have my generous hosts to thank for that.” He did not miss the way Matoba’s visible eye narrowed almost imperceptibly.

“Really?” Matoba inquired, sounding absolutely fascinated. “I asked because I thought you looked bored, hiding away in the corner all evening.”

_Oh?_

Seiji was in a confrontational mood tonight, Natori thought, and fought to keep his grin at bay.

“Hm. It’s hardly the guests’ fault, is it, if their hosts haven’t been very entertaining?” For a moment Natori wondered if he had gone too far, before Matoba’s frown broke into a smile so bright that Natori was forced to check his watch once more, if only to have something else to look at.

“In that case, I have a proposition,” Natori heard him say, and wondered bleakly what constituted an acceptable amount of time to spend staring at a small clockface, before your conversation partner noticed something was amiss. Natori decided he had reached some sort of limit, and reluctantly met Seiji’s gaze.

“I could give you a tour,” Matoba said, flashing that magnanimous smile, “of our cellars. They go on for miles underground.”

Natori clicked his tongue in his best approximation of disapproval. “I’d much rather see the libraries.”

“I’m sure you would.” Matoba made a poor show of keeping the smugness out of his voice. “It could be arranged, you know, if you considered joining us. But,” he said, taking a sudden and vested interest in his own cuticles, “we both know that’s a lost cause.”

Natori nodded solemnly. “We do.”

“So what do you say?”

“About what?”

“About the tour.”

Natori looked up from his watch again and realized with a start that the tip of Matoba’s nose was suddenly in very close proximity to his own. _Or had Seiji been standing this close since the beginning of their conversation?_ The periphery of Natori’s vision blurred, not unpleasantly.

“Alright,” he said, and allowed Matoba to lead him out into the foyer, where exorcists and their servants milled about - entirely indistinguishable from one another in their outlandish garb, and oblivious to Matoba and Natori weaving through them like ghosts. The two of them slipped soundlessly towards the back of the room, melting in and out of the crowd, and discreetly made their exit. From there, Matoba led Natori across a garden (the south-facing garden, if he recalled correctly) and into a storehouse which stood at the far end of the clan manor.

It was dark inside the storehouse. Along the stone walls at roughly shoulder-height, metal sconces sat empty. Matoba reached into the folds of his robe, and Natori half expected him to produce a candle holder and matchbox. After all, the clan was so set in tradition that it was easy to forget they weren’t still living in the Meiji era. Natori felt a pang of what was either disappointment or foolish joy as he watched Matoba finally draw an electric torch from his pocket. The iron bolt affixed to the low-hanging basement door was heavy - so heavy, in fact, that Matoba had to hand the flashlight off to Natori so that he could use both hands to lift it from its moorings and slide it across. The door swung inward on creaking hinges, the flashlight beam revealing a steep flight of stairs.

Seiji took Natori’s hand in his own and down they went.

**. . .**

“Where are we going?” Natori asked, far too late, when they rounded a corner and began descending once more.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m giving you a tour of our wine cellars.”

“I’m not interested in your wine cellars.”

He felt Seiji squeeze his hand in the dark. “I know.”

That was the beginning of all Natori’s troubles.

**. . .**

Minutes and minutes ticked by.

The exorcists did not make conversation, but Seiji hummed softly to himself and Natori, whose head still felt champagne-fuzzy, was content to listen.

“Are we allowed to be down here?” He asked after what might have been half an hour.

He regretted the question the moment it left his tongue, not just because it was absurd but because it instantly transported him backwards in time, and now he was standing in that south facing garden in his high school uniform and his companion still had both eyes and there was a pilfered bottle of sake between them and overhead the branches stretched so high---

They had stopped walking. _When had they stopped walking?_ Matoba was looking at Natori, so strange and still and quiet that Natori knew they must be sharing the same thought.

“I can do whatever I want,” Seiji said after a long pause. “I’m head of the clan.”

He laughed then, and it was perhaps the most genuine sound Natori had heard in all his years of living. Natori clasped a hand over Matoba’s mouth to stifle the noise - another patellar reflex bequeathed to him by a younger version of himself - and drew back in surprise when Matoba sucked Natori’s index finger into his mouth.

“What---” he started, but by that time Matoba was already up ahead, and Natori had to break into a jog to catch up with him.

“You need not concern yourself with keeping quiet,” Seiji said. “There is nowhere in this house I cannot go if I wish it. And besides,” his smile reminded Natori of a knife being slowly pulled from its scabbard, “no one can hear us down here anyway.”

**. . .**

It was late when they came to the end of the corridor. Casks lined the walls, two barrels deep in some places, and space was so scarce that they had to turn sideways to continue walking.

Had the circumstances been different, Natori might not have laughed as he did when they reached the dead end and he saw the pair of iron shackles chained to the stone wall in front of him. But the champagne ( _in his defense, it had been very good champagne_ ) still rang warmly at the back of his throat, and fear did not occur to him.

“Don’t tell me you want me to tie you up?” His voice bounced eerily off the granite floors and ceiling, and Natori counted himself lucky he didn’t suffer from claustrophobia.

“I was hoping for the opposite, actually,” Matoba said blithely, and Natori thought again that he looked and sounded an awful lot like a knife. _Knife when he speaks, knife when he moves._

Natori sighed and shook his head, already reaching for the shackles. He _had_ been the one who’d requested more in the way of _entertainment_ , and now he supposed he was paying the price.

The metal felt smooth and cool on his wrists when Matoba snapped the shackles shut. Natori hooked a finger under the sash that kept Seiji’s robe closed, and pulled him near.

“How are you finding your tour?” Matoba asked.

Natori smiled against Seiji’s neck and said, “How do I untie this thing?”

“......You don’t know how to take off a kimono?”

The distaste in Matoba’s tone was so palpable, Natori had to laugh. He sucked a bruise onto Seiji’s skin and said, “You’ll have to teach me.”

Matoba sighed dramatically. “The work never ends.”

 _What am I doing?_ Natori wondered, but the thought was promptly crushed beneath an abrupt impulse to run his fingers through Seiji’s hair. He tried to raise a hand to the back of Matoba’s head, but found his movement limited by the shackles.

“Are these enchanted?” He gave the chains an experimental tug.

Matoba pulled back, eye shining. “Very good.”

Natori couldn’t remember seeing Matoba lock the shackles, but they refused to give even when he threw all his weight upon them. When he concentrated, he could feel the faint hum of the binding spells holding the whole ensemble in place. He reached for Matoba again, and somewhere in the fumble the electric torch dropped from Seiji’s hand. It hit the stone floor with a _crack!_  and made a terrible, hollow sound as it rolled, casting shadows across the wine casks.

“What do you think you would have to do?” Matoba asked softly. “To break free of those chains.”

“Hm?”

Seiji’s expression was wry, amused even. ( _How did he manage such expressiveness, such animation, with only one eye showing?_ It infuriated Natori.)

“I’m testing a new binding incantation, and I’d like to determine its precise limits.”

Natori’s mouth went very suddenly dry.

“If that’s the case, this is poor implementation of the scientific method,” he said. “You would need a much larger and more diversified pool of test subjects.” He added, “Hypothetically-speaking, of course,” and prayed they were speaking hypothetically.

“On the contrary.” Matoba did not quite manage a smile, but the smile he did not quite manage was knifelike still. “Your unique skillset serves as an excellent beta test. Your practice is unusual enough to make for an interesting challenge, and your methods have proven strong enough and sound enough to put up a good fight. Rare _and_ consistent. I look forward to recording the results.”

Matoba took a step back, the neckline of his monsuke robe askew. Natori watched him take another step back, and then another.

“People will come looking for me,” he said, and _thought_ he kept his voice from shaking. But he had been wrong before.

“Will they?” Matoba sounded interested, as if he were reading a particularly engrossing newspaper column. “Your relatives who don’t talk to you? Your family, who you call twice a year, if that?” Seiji shook his head. “I think not, Shuuichi-san.”

 _Natsume will come looking for me!_ Natori thought desperately, before realizing that Matoba may very well have been counting on it, and the cry died in his throat.

“Matoba!”

“Goodbye, Shuuichi-san.”

He watched as Seiji’s back retreated from view, getting farther and farther away until he left the radius of the flashlight's beam, and melted altogether into the night.

**. . .**

The following morning, Nanase generously overlooked the bruises on Natori’s wrists and Seiji’s throat. She seemed suspiciously unsurprised that Natori Shuuichi was still on the property at all, when most of the guests had departed the previous night - but if she had questions, she did not voice them.

“Natori-san.” She looked up from her tea and biscuits when Natori entered the dining parlor of the east wing. She did not turn her head to watch as he made straight for the coatroom to retrieve his hat and jacket, but her eyes followed him to the door.

“Will you be joining us for breakfast?” Nanase asked crisply.

Natori did not join them for breakfast.

He was _never_ going to another Matoba clan party again, he told himself as he stalked from the house. Even in the event of an open bar.

**Author's Note:**

> I was encouraged to write this by tumblr/AO3 user havisham, whose Silmarillion/Amontillado AU popularized what we’ve decided to call caskfic. Their writing is wonderful, and if you’re at all into Tolkien I highly recommend checking their stuff out!
> 
> Title is a snippet of a snippet from Poe’s "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"


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